Companies to pitch in on La. 1 improvement

A major project to create an improved La. 1 lifeline to the largest oil and gas port in North America has hit murky water and prompted an unusual commitment from companies to pay for part of the road.

John HarperStaff Writer

A major project to create an improved La. 1 lifeline to the largest oil and gas port in North America has hit murky water and prompted an unusual commitment from companies to pay for part of the road.Last month, oil and gas companies agreed to contribute $20 million to continue elevating the highway, a move those involved with the project say is unusual, if not unprecedented.“The offshore oil and gas industry considers the success of La. 1 a key component in realizing our offshore energy future,” said Brent Golleher, manager of government relations with the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association. “Day after day, announcements are made about new discoveries in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. None of these are possible without access to a robust La. 1 and Port Fourchon. ... Furthermore, the completion of La. 1 adds valuable safety features for emergency response and citizen evacuation during times of duress.” The money will be used to build the first of three phases of the project, which will extend from a four-lane highway in Golden Meadow across flood protection barriers. Preliminary plans for that project were recently submitted to the state Department of Transportation and Development for review and approval, after which final plans will be put into place. “This gets the project moving. It says here the money is on the table,” LA 1 Coalition Executive Director Henri Boulet said. “I believe this is a first, that industry would come to the state and say we will build a state-run highway.”Loulan Pitre, a former state representative who sits on the board of the LA 1 Coalition, said the private money is not unprecedented but is unusual. “Normally you see this type of private funding when a road is used explicitly by one company,” Pitre said. “This is affecting multiple users.”Boulet said about 15 percent of $140 million annual payments from the BP oil spill can be used to help complete the remaining $260 million work on the project, bringing the coalition one step forward to a highway that was once considered nothing more than a pipe dream. There's not much connecting Port Fourchon with the rest of Louisiana. As what was once marsh begins to look more like open water, the port has become increasingly an island tethered to the continent by a two-lane stretch of La. 1.The elevation of that highway above the encroaching seawater was halfway completed in 2011 for about $320 million. From Leeville, a small community clinging to the levees that border the original piece of the highway, the first eight-mile stretch of the elevated road rises on giant concrete pillars, traveling skyward over the vast stretch of water that enters the Gulf of Mexico. But the road connecting Leeville with La. 1 in Golden Meadow is still at ground level, protected only by a sliver of land on either side, and subject to overtopping and closures that cost the companies who rely on it for access to the Gulf tens of thousands of dollars per rig per day the port is inaccessible. Even after the road opens, clearance from federal and state agencies for rigs to resume operations can take days. “It was never intended to service millions of barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Ted Falgout, who directed the port from 1978 to 2009. “It was designed for my grandparents to visit each other in the afternoon.” State Sen. Norbert Chabert, R-Houma, said getting La. 1 improved is an uphill challenge.“This is a major project with national significance,” said Chabert, who has been a part of the coalition to finish the roadway. “There are no congressional earmarks for us to get the rest of the funding, and right now we have to go in alone, which is ludicrous.”Originally the entire 16-mile stretch of La. 1 was projected to cost $350 million, but a series of hurricanes delayed the project and pilings had to be drilled exceptionally deep into the ground to compensate for lost silt. The price tag to finish the bridge is roughly equivalent to the entire capital transportation outlay in Louisiana each year, Chabert said. That has left the bridge coalition and the increasingly busy port, currently in the midst of several $20 million-plus expansions to keep up with a surge in deepwater offshore drilling, with a financing problem. Meanwhile the state is facing a roughly $12 billion road construction backlog. Another issue has been convincing the nation of the significance of the overly expensive highway, which so far has carried an average of 5,000 vehicles per day. According to a study by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a 90-day closure of 7.1 miles along existing La. 1 could result in up to a $7.8 billion loss in American gross domestic product. “Basically there is no large infrastructure capability in this country today,” Falgout said. “We are building mainly one infrastructure project that this entire country is benefitting from.”

Staff Writer John Harper can be reached at 857-2209 or john.harper@houmatoday.com. Follow him on twitter @JC_HARP.

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